1. Two man car pool from off-base housing. Entered base from West Gate and drove around air strip to join squadron formation at 4:30am. 2. I was in the passenger seat and saw a strange object coming from the East out over the Gulf and asked the driver to stop the car. We both got out of the car and watched the object as it traveled West. 3. I first thought it was a missle, possibly from Cape Kennedy (Canaveral), but it was not a missle. 4. It appeared as a long black cylinder. Its length was about 5-6 times its diameter. It was still dark at that time of the morning, but the object was sufficient elevation for sun light to reflect off the surface which appeared bumpy like wrought iron. All the while there were these random orangish emissions from the back that would form blobs and fade away to nothing. 5. I thought that it had to be huge and outside the earth's atmosphere. 6. Before it was completely out of sight, we had to get back into the car and drive to formation to be on time.